Clarification necessary as mayor-elect discusses canceling project

Although it has already been explicitly stated in two
letters from the federal government, Federal Transit Administration
(FTA) Chief Counsel Dorval Carter on Monday reiterated that if Cincinnati were to unravel the
$132.8 million streetcar project, the city would lose $40.9 million in federal grants and another $4 million in federal funds would be
transferred to the state government, which could appropriate the money
to any project in Ohio.

The clarification is necessary because Mayor-elect John
Cranley and a majority of the incoming City Council are looking into
pausing and potentially canceling the streetcar project once they take office in December. Cranley says he
will lobby the federal government to reallocate the federal funds, even
though the federal government has repeatedly insisted it’s not
going to happen.

Carter joined City Council’s Budget and Finance Committee on the phone on Monday to walk council members through the legal
technicalities involved in cancellation and how the federal government
would react to such circumstances.

According to Carter, merely delaying the project at this point would
break the city’s agreement with the federal government and
lead the federal government to restrict the federal funds,
ask the city to repay the money it already spent or terminate the
deal altogether.

Still, Carter said cancellation might not hurt the city’s chances, at least from a legal perspective, of obtaining federal funds for other projects.

“It will not preclude you from pursuing other projects,” he said. “You would just have to pursue those on their own merits.”

But Carter agreed with Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls that
the city’s credibility could be weakened if the streetcar project were
canceled.

President Barack Obama’s administration has prioritized light rail projects like the streetcar, according to Carter, so the reclaimed federal moneywould likely go to other cities pursuing similarly ambitious transit projects.

At a press conference following the council meeting, Cranley appeared unfazed by the news.

“If we have to, we’ll give the money back,” he said.

Although much noise was made about the council meeting, there wasn’t much news in the way of substance. The federal government already outlined the cancellation costs in separate letters sent to Mayor Mark Mallory in June and earlier in November.

With two weeks left until Election Day, the Cincinnati Women’s Political Caucus has issued a mass mailing informing voters about its endorsed candidates this year for City Council, mayor and school board.

Although it’s no surprise that City Council’s right-leaning minority — Republicans Leslie Ghiz and Chris Monzel, Charterite Chris Bortz and Democrat-in-exile Jeff Berding — didn’t win the organization’s endorsement given their past statements about women’s reproductive rights, two moderate Democrats who are incumbents also didn’t make the cut.

Mayor will accept federal money on Thursday

Cincinnati officials will
hold a press conference Thursday to announce that the city will receive a $3
million federal grant to address lead paint problems in apartments and houses.

The U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development (HUD) awarded the grant to the city’s Community
Development Department. City staffers will work with some local nonprofit
agencies in allocating the funds.

At least 240 residential
units will be able to have lead abatement completed, officials said.

Mayor Mark Mallory and City
Manager Milton Dohoney Jr. will formally accept the money, which is the fourth
lead-related HUD grant given to Cincinnati, in council chambers at 10 a.m.
Thursday. The chambers are located on the third floor of City Hall, 801 Plum
St., downtown.

Representatives from the
agencies that will help the city use the money also are expected to attend.
They include Price Hill Will, Over-the-Rhine Community Housing, Cincinnati
Housing Partners, People Working Cooperatively, Working In Neighborhoods and
the Northside Community Urban Redevelopment Corp.

Lead poisoning is the leading
environmentally induced illness in children, according to the Environmental
Protection Agency. At greatest risk are children under the age of six because
they are undergoing rapid neurological and physical development.

The United States banned the
use of lead in household paint in 1978, but it often can be found on the walls
of dwellings in cities with older housing stock like Cincinnati.

An estimated 19,000 children
under age six in Ohio have unsafe levels of lead in their blood, according to
an analysis by the Environmental Working Group. The number includes an
estimated 1,400 children in Hamilton County.

Streetcar opponents allow Sittenfeld to act like a leader in everyone’s face

By all accounts, yesterday’s special council session to
discuss the Cincinnati streetcar was long and contentious, more than 60 streetcar supporters
pleading with an indignant Mayor John Cranley and newly elected council members
still spouting campaign-trail anti-streetcar rhetoric.

After the meeting, Cranley dismissed an offer by major philanthropy organization The Carol
Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr./U.S. Bank Foundation to pay for a study of
streetcar shut-down costs that opponents want to see come in lower than the
city’s estimates before they vote to completely stop the project. Cranley dismissed
the offer because it also came with a note saying that if the streetcar is canceled the foundation will
reconsider its contributions to Music
Hall, the Smale Riverfront Park and other city projects. Cranley would rather make the city pay for the study than negotiate with terrorists respond to threats.

About seven and a half hours into this debacle of American
democracy — which included numerous procedural abnormalities including the
mayor asking Council to discuss and vote on ordinances no one had read yet, an hours-long
delay and a funding appropriation that leaves the cancellation vote safe from
the pro-streetcar-threatened voter referendum (something Cranley railed against
when the city administration kept the parking plan safe from referendum) — Councilman
P.G. Sittenfeld livened things up with something everyone tired of the streetcar
debate can agree is funny: undermining the mayor’s authority by asking fellow
council members to overrule him.

The following video published by UrbanCincy shows Cranley denying Sittenfeld an opportunity to speak. Sittenfeld then asks for a vote to overrule Cranley, which the mayor had to approve, and everyone but Kevin Flynn votes to overrule. (Flynn unfortunately had to vote first, leaving him unable to determine which way the vote was likely to go — a tough position for a rookie politician.) Once David Mann and Amy Murray voted to allow Sittenfeld to speak, the rest of the anti-streetcar faction followed suit, knowing Sittenfeld had the necessary votes to overrule Cranley. Then Sittenfeld spent a few minutes going mayoral on Cincinnati's new mayor.

Mayor-elect John Cranley and the newly elected City Council announced on Tuesday that, upon taking office in December, they will terminate the city’s plan to lease its parking meters, lots and garages to the Greater Cincinnati Port Authority,
following an agreement with the Port Authority to hold off on a bond
sale that would have financed — and effectively sealed — the deal. But
it remains unclear how much it will cost to terminate the plan, default
on the lease agreement with the Port Authority and allow the Port to
break its contracts with private companies that would have operated the
assets under the deal. The current city administration argues the
parking plan is necessary to help balance the budget over the next two
years, pay for economic development projects around the city and
modernize the city’s parking assets so, for example, parking meters can
accept credit card payments. Opponents argue the plan gives up too much
control over the city’s parking assets by outsourcing their operations
to private companies based around the country.

Cranley now says he will not allow a referendum on any ordinance undoing the streetcar project
and will instead try to work with supporters of the project to find
another way to put it on the ballot if they can gather enough petition
signatures. Cranley says blocking a referendum is necessary to avoid
spending money during a referendum campaign that could last months. But
for supporters of the streetcar, Cranley’s decision seems highly
hypocritical following his repeated praise for the “people’s sacred
right of referendum” on the campaign trail after City Council blocked a
referendum on the parking plan. If the project is placed on the ballot,
it will essentially be the third time it’s brought to a public vote;
opponents of the project in 2009 and 2011 pursued two ballot initiatives
that many saw as referendums on the streetcar.

Meanwhile, Over-the-Rhine businesses and residents yesterday officially launched a campaign to save the streetcar project
from Cranley and a newly elected City Council that appears poised to
cancel the project. Touting the project’s potential return on investment
and cancellation costs,
the group plans to lobby newly elected officials to vote in favor of
keeping the project going. The group invited Cranley and all elected
council members to join them at a town hall-style meeting on Nov. 14 at
the Mercantile Library, where supporters will discuss their path
forward. So far, supporters have publicly discussed a concerted lobbying
effort, a ballot initiative if council passes an ordinance undoing the
streetcar project and possible legal action against the city.

The Cincinnati Enquirer’s editorial board is apparently unpleasantly surprised
that Cranley undid the parking plan, even though the board endorsed
Cranley for mayor after he ran in opposition to the parking plan for
nearly a year.

Meanwhile, the Ohio legislature is working on changes to Medicaid
that would cap future cost increases and employ professional staff for a
Joint Medicaid Oversight Committee that would have the ability to
review Medicaid programs and agencies. The bill also includes a portion
that clarifies its passage “shall not be construed with endorsing,
validating or otherwise approving the (Medicaid) expansion.”

Despite attempts from city officials and local business leaders, Saks Fifth Avenue is leaving downtown to open a store at Kenwood Collection.

Revisions will reduce city layoffs, make cuts to outside agencies

Mayor Mark Mallory announced revisions to the city manager’s budget plan
today that will reduce the amount of layoffs by making several
additional cuts, particularly in funding that goes to outside agencies,
and using recently discovered revenue.

Mallory’s changes will restore 18 firefighter positions,
17 police positions, three inspector positions at the Health Department
and two positions at the Law Department, reducing the total layoffs to 161, with 49 of those being police positions and 53 being firefighter positions.

To balance out the restored positions, the mayor is suggesting closing down two more recreation centers: Westwood Town Hall
Recreation Center and Mt. Auburn Recreation Center. He is also suggesting cuts to the
mayor’s office budget ($32,000) and outside agencies ($1.3 million),
including the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC), the
Greater Cincinnati Port Authority, the Center for Closing the Health Gap,
the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber of Commerce and the African American Chamber
of Commerce.

Mallory’s revised budget plan also makes use of about
$500,000 in revenue that was not located in time for City Manager Milton
Dohoney’s budget proposal.

Mallory justified the cuts by saying public safety must
come first, but he says he would keep the funding under better circumstances.

“The progress we have seen in our city cannot stand on its own without an emphasis on public safety,” he said.

The budget will have to be enacted by June 1 to give the
city 30 days to implement the changes before fiscal year 2014, which
begins July 1. It will now move to City Council, which will be able to make its own changes.

Mallory stressed that the city’s $35 million operating budget deficit
is being driven by a few outside factors, including reduced state
funding, court challenges holding up the parking plan and the recent
economic downturn.

Gov. John Kasich has cut local government funding by about half in his state budget plans, which Dohoney estimated cost
Cincinnati about $22.2 million in 2013 (“Enemy of the State,” issue of March 20).

The city was planning to make up for some of that lost
funding by leasing its parking assets to the Port Authority and using
the funds to help balance the deficit and fund development projects
around the city, including a downtown grocery store (“Parking Stimulus,”
issue of Feb. 27). But opponents of the plan, who say they are cautious
of parking rate hikes and extended parking meter hours, have
successfully held up the plan in court and through a referendum effort.

Cincinnati’s population has steadily decreased since the
1950s, which means the city has been taking in less tax revenue from a
shrinking population. That was exacerbated by the Great Recession, which
further lowered tax revenue as people lost their jobs and cut back
spending.

Still, the city has run structurally imbalanced budget
since 2001, according to previous testimony from Budget Director Lea
Eriksen. The previous budgets were balanced through one-time revenue
sources, but Dohoney told media outlets last week that, barring the
parking plan, those sources have run out.

Jim Berns blames local media for his campaign’s failure

Libertarian mayoral candidate Jim Berns today pronounced his campaign dead and claimed local media, including CityBeat, is to blame.

“From day one, the Cincinnati Print Media (especially the
Enquirer) have thrown Libertarian candidate for mayor, Jim Berns, under
the bus,” Berns wrote in an email, listing Carl Weiser, Jane
Prendergast, Ryan Hoffman and Ben Goldschmidt of The Cincinnati Enquirer, Howard Wilkinson of WVXU, German Lopez of CityBeat and Chris Wetterich of The Business Courier as the main culprits.

In the email, Berns complains that the two frontrunners in the
mayoral race — Democrats Roxanne Qualls and John Cranley — have nearly
identical records. Those candidates’ biggest points of disagreement are
the streetcar and parking plan, both of which Qualls supports and Cranley opposes.

The email claims the media should call Berns “courageous, innovative, a real choice” instead of a “perennial
candidate.”

Berns then attached this picture:

The latest stunt is just one of many that have been part of Berns’ campaign.

In general, the Libertarian’s campaign has focused a lot
on giving stuff away. His campaign card proudly touts his intent to give
out free ice cream, which he has repeatedly done at events.

As a Libertarian, Berns supports lower taxes and smaller government and opposes drug prohibition. He was endorsed by the conservative Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes (COAST).

Cincinnati is generally considered a Democratic stronghold, which has kept Berns’ chances of winning the mayoral race very low. The city hasn’t had a non-Democratic mayor since Charterite Arnold
Bortz left office in 1984. Back then, the local Democratic Party and the Charter
Committee were working together through a coalition.

Voter turnout for first round of mayoral race historically low

Ex-Councilman John Cranley decisively defeated Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls today as both the Democratic mayoral candidates won the primary election and advanced to the general election.

With all precincts reporting, Cranley got 55.9 percent of the vote and Qualls picked up 37.2 percent, according to unofficial results from the Hamilton County Board of Elections. The other two candidates — Libertarian Jim Berns and Independent Sandra “Queen” Noble — each failed to break 5 percent of the vote.

The two victors come as little surprise to most election watchers, who have long been calling Cranley and Qualls the frontrunners. But Cranley’s strong lead has led to celebrations from Cranley’s supporters and downplaying from Qualls’ backers.

The city has held only two primaries since it enacted its “strong mayor” rules in 1999, which call for a primary when there’s more than two eligible candidates. The two winners then go on to the general election for the final decision. Previously, the City Council candidate with the most votes was designated mayor.

In both the primary elections held since 1999, the primary winner ended up losing the general election. In 2001, Courtis Fuller beat Charlie Luken in the primary in a 53.8-38.5 percent vote; Luken went on to win the general election 55.4-44.6 percent. In 2005, David Pepper narrowly beat Mark Mallory in the primary 31.2-30.7 percent; Mallory is currently mayor after winning the general election 51.8-48.2 percent in 2005 and getting re-elected in 2009.

The results’ significance is even murkier because voter turnout was a dismal 5.68 percent. In comparison, the mayoral primary held on Sept. 11, 2001 — the day of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon — had 15 percent voter turnout. In 2005, 21 percent of voters participated in the mayoral primary.

Still, Cranley’s victory is being heralded by his supporters tonight, particularly because it might show a shift from Qualls’ strong lead in early polls.

For the two camps, the contentious race is about which vision Cincinnati should embrace as the city’s downtown revitalization gains national recognition and momentum. Qualls supports the streetcar project and parking lease, while Cranley opposes both.

On other issues ranging from inclusion in city contracts to government transparency, the candidates are largely in agreement. Berns, who was officially removed from the mayoral race through today’s vote, spent much of his time on the campaign trail criticizing Cranley and Qualls for sharing a remarkably similar voting record on City Council.

Cranley served on City Council from 2000 to 2009. Qualls has been on City Council since 2007 and previously served on City Council from 1991 to 1993 and as mayor from 1993 to 1999.

Voters will make the final decision between Cranley and Qualls on Nov. 5.

This story was updated with clearer election results and to correct Cranley’s full time on City Council, which the story previously said was from 2001 to 2009 instead of the accurate timespan of 2000 to 2009.

Letter comes on eve of council vote on streetcar project

The company in charge of building Cincinnati's streetcars says the city would incur substantial costs if it cancels the streetcar project after it's already gone through some construction and design work.

The Nov. 30 letter from CAF USA Vice President Virginia Verdeja to former Mayor Mark Mallory arrived just one day before Mayor John Cranley, who opposes the streetcar project, and an anti-streetcar majority were sworn in.

"CAF will have to recover all the incurred expenses as well as all the additional cost of cancelling the contract, which would be substantial too," Verdeja writes in the letter.

The letter explains that, on top of the sunk expenses on design work, cancellation would require CAF to pull back on various established deals with subcontractors, which would spur further costs.

For streetcar supporters, the letter renews fears of litigation that could crop up if the project were canceled and contractors decided to pursue their full payday. Those legal costs would fall on the already-strained operating budget that pays for day-to-day services like police and firefighters instead of the capital budget that finances big capital projects like the streetcar, according to city spokesperson Meg Olberding.

On Nov. 21, Streetcar Project Executive John Deatrick warned the costs of canceling the $132.8 million streetcar project could nearly reach the costs of completion after accounting for $32.8 million in estimated sunk
costs through November, a potential range of $30.6-$47.6 million in
close-out costs and up to $44.9 million in federal grant money that
would be lost if the project were terminated.

Earlier on Sunday, hundreds of streetcar supporters rallied in Washington Park and walked the planned streetcar route in support of the project. They're threatening a referendum if the new City Council moves to pause or cancel the project.

City Council plans to vote on pausing the project on Monday. Because of threats from the federal government that a mere delay could lead to the loss of federal grants, streetcar supporters claim a pause would equate to cancellation.

One local blog has heard rumors that Dr. Brad Wenstrup, the GOP mayoral candidate, is backing away from remarks he made about the Cincinnati Police Department while on the campaign trail. Instead, Wenstrup or his surrogates are allegedly blaming the blog for inaccurate reporting.